The Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference is blessed to have some of the wisest and insightful of internationally known herbalists as Featured Speakers & Presenters, tradition keepers as well as cutting edge innovators, with each being an experienced practitioners as well teacher or theorist. Included are a number of the personalities who’ve done the most help inform and inspire Kiva Rose, myself, our Animá Herbal School, and the intent and spirit of this magical gathering. The response from potential speakers and workshop facilitators was immediate and enthusiastic, so much so that the 20 or so available positions were quickly filled. Those who did not apply early enough to get a slot for the 2010 conference, we’ll hope to host in 2011 and beyond. While you’re likely to already be familiar with most of this year’s presenters through their schools, apprenticeships, online presence or books, we invite you to read more about their work in the bios included here... yours and our teachers, allies and inspiriteurs.

Featured Speakers

Rosemary Gladstar is a pioneer in the herbal movement and has been called the 'godmother of American Herbalism'. She began 35 years ago developing herbal formulas in her herb shop, Rosemary's Garden in Sonoma County, California. She is the founder of the California School of Herbal Studies, the oldest running herb school in the United States, author of The Science and Art of Herbalism home study course, and is the organizer of the International Herb Symposium and The New England Women's Herbal Conference held annually in NE. She is the author of numerous herb books including the best seller Herbal Healing for Women, The Family Herbal, and the Science and Art of Herbalism, an extensive home study course. Rosemary is also the co-founder of Traditional Medicinals Tea Company and did all of the original formulations for the company. She has taught extensively throughout the United States and worldwide at venues as varied as backyard gardens, native villages, garden clubs, churches to universities and hospitals. She has won numerous awards and certificates for her work with medicinal plants, but her greatest reward has been in watching the herbal renaissance soar from its birth and feeling in some way, a small part of it.

Her greatest passion has been the work of United Plant Savers, a non profit organization that Rosemary founded in 1994 and is currently president of. UpS is dedicated to the conservation and cultivation of at risk North American medicinal plants and to preserving botanical sanctuaries across the U.S. to help preserve the land that these precious native species thrive on. Rosemary lives and works from her home, Sage Mountain Herbal Retreat Center, a 500 acre botanical preserve in central Vermont. www.sagemountain.com

Matthew Wood has been a practicing herbalist since 1982. In a period when many authors and lecturers are merely "arm chair herbalists" who offer theories and opinions based on book learning, and others have turned to the exotic traditions of India or China, he has been an active practitioner of traditional Western herbalism. While Matthew believes in the virtue of many other healing modalities, he has always been inspired to learn, preserve, and practice the tradition of herbal medicine descending to us from our European, Anglo-American, and Native American heritage. Matthew has lectured in all parts of the United States, from Georgia to Maine, New York to California, and Santa Fe to Sperryville, Virginia. He has also taught in Canada, Scotland, England, and Australia. He is known throughout the world as an excellent teacher of herbal medicine. www.matthewwoodherbs.com

7Song is the Director of the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine and practices as a Western Clinical Herbalist at the Ithaca Free Clinic in Ithaca, NY, where is also Director of Holistic Medicine. Since 1981 he has studied with numerous teachers (including a few years with Michael Moore where he taught botany), and is continually learning by teaching and practicing. One of herbalism’s great attributes is that it offers both time outside (with plants and all else) as well as working with people. This is unique to herbalism, connecting people and their medicines along with the environment around them. One of his favorite pastimes is seeking out new plants, keying them out and taking photos alongside of wildcrafting and medicine-making. As a practitioner and teacher he looks at ways of helping people get a fuller understanding of the big picture of herbal medicine and not just as a replacement for pharmaceuticals.

He has been running and teaching the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine since 1992 and is glad for both the information sharing as well as all the learning that goes on with being a teacher, learning both information and how to better disseminate it. Info at www.7Song.com

Jesse Wolf Hardin has been a leading voice of and for the natural world for nearly four decades, his work earning praise from a wide range of contemporaries from Gary Snyder and Edward Abbey to Leslie Tierra and Rosemary Gladstar. Hardin’s public appearances and published works have helped inspire deep personal inquiry, healing, and life-enhancing changes, as well as increased self sufficiency, grass roots organization, conservation legislation and community activism in this country. He’s been a featured presenter at hundreds of conferences and universities, sometimes presenting cross cultural collaborations called “Medicine Shows” that melded his spoken word with live music. He’s the author of over 600 published magazine articles and seven books, including I’m a Medicine Woman Too! (Hops Press 2009), an illustrated tale of herbal wisdom and personal empowerment for children and readers of all ages, and appears in The Encyclopedia of Nature & Religion (Continuum 2005), The Soul Unearthed (Tarcher/Putnam, 1996) and How Shall I Live My Life? (PM Press 2008). He’s also a master plant illustrator and interpretive artist for several herbalists’ designs as well as the TWHC logo. His connection to the plant world goes back to his childhood preoccupation with all things green and growing, attended him as he ran away from military school at age thirteen, inspired his art as he opened his Mt. Unique Gallery in Taos in 1978, and was part of the reason for his establishing the Anima Sanctuary in 1980... a riparian wilderness he has worked to restore and protect, seven river crossings from the nearest road. It has also led him to join Kiva in envisioning a school and curricula focused on increasing abilities for healing not only the self and others but also the natural world that is “more than our pantry and pharmacy... it is us.” The Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference is a natural extension of that work, as well as an act of love.

Jim McDonald lives in Michigan and offers of herbalism that blends Western folk, indigenous, and Vitalist traditions of 19th century Western herbalism. He hosts the website www.herbcraft.org and is currently writing A Great Lakes Herbal. Jim is a community herbalist, a manic wildcrafter and medicine maker, and has been an ardent student of the most learned teachers of herbcraft... the plants themselves.

Phyllis Hogan has been a practicing Southwest herbalist for over twenty-five years. She is the proprietress of the Winter Sun Trading Company, located in Flagstaff, Arizona, established in 1976. Winter Sun specializes in traditional organic southwest herbs and tinctures as well as American Indian Art. In 1983 she co-founded the Arizona Ethnobotanical Research Association (AERA), a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit educational and scientific organization. The AERA was organized to investigate, document, and preserve traditional plant use in Arizona and the greater Southwest. The AERA was awarded recognition by the American Herbalist guild at their 14th annual symposium for outstanding contributions in the field of American ethnobotany. She has taught ethnobotany in bilingual education programs and health education for the Pima, Hualapai, Havasupai, Hopi, and Navajo tribes. In 2008, she was awarded the United Plant Savers Medicinal Plant Conservation Award. Phyllis is the proud mother of Denise Tracy Cowan, founder of the Super Salve Co., a natural skin care line, and DeeAnn Tracy Brown, founder of Peak Scents and co- founder with Denise of Sister Creations. On January 16, 2010 she became the gushing grandmother of Bodhi Kai Brown. www.wintersun.com

Paul Bergner has studied and practiced natural medicine since 1973, with formal studies in naturopathy, medical herbalism, clinical nutrition, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, flower essences, yoga therapy, and bodywork, including undergraduate studies in pre-medicine and psychology, and 50 semester hours of doctoral level medical studies at National College of Naturopathic Medicine. He has edited the Medical Herbalism journal since its founding in 1989, and has written seven books on medical herbalism, nutrition, Chinese medicine, ethnobotany, and naturopathic medicine. He has also edited periodicals on clinical nutrition and naturopathic medicine. Paul directed the clinical herbalism program at Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies for eight years, training more than 100 certified clinical herbalists in a 1500 hour education that culminated in a nine-month internship program. He is currently adjunct faculty in nutrition at Naropa University, adjunct faculty in nutrition and pathophysiology at the Tai Sophia Institute, and nutrition faculty at the Seven Bowls school of nutrition. In addition to directing the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism, he teaches herbal materia medica and therapeutics, clinical nutrition, basic medical sciences, clinical skills, medical history and philosophy, and nature studies. www.naimh.com

Howie Brounstein has been a professional herbalist/botanist for over twenty years. He is the primary instructor of the Columbines School of Botanical Studies. He has taught botany, herbalism, and wildcrafting extensively for decades, including such herbal establishments as the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. He was the owner of Columbines and Wizardry Herbs, and is active locally and internationally in protected plants and ecological assessments. Howie has a clinical practice in Eugene, Oregon. www.botanicalstudies.net

Kiva Rose CoDirector of the TWH Conference, Kiva is becoming increasingly well known as a blogger, author, clinical herbalist the co-creator of Anima correspondence course curricula, teaching all of the herbal courses as well as classes in ethnobotany, botany, foraging, edible wild plants, traditional lifeways and primal nutrition. She’s garnered international attention for her inspiring and informative Anima Healing Arts blog, with her focus on a vitalist approach to local plants, sustainability, whole person/whole plant understandings and earthy, practical ways of teaching people to work with the plants themselves rather than being dependent on experts. Her focus is on accessible, grassroots herbalism that empowers the individual and serves the community, both the human component as well as the larger earthen community. She believes in restoring health at all levels and approaches healing from the understanding that the body is a diverse and intelligent ecology, integrally connected to the planet as a whole. As such, she frequently works in an integrative style, including herbal medicine, nutrition, counseling and other holistic therapies in her practice. She enjoys her home and role at the Anima Lifeways & Herbal School, an 80 acre botanical sanctuary in S.W. New Mexico where she devotes much of her time to facilitating the continuance and spread of traditional, grassroots herbal medicine. Kiva is personally responsible for the difficult TWHC website programming and artistic layout, most of the research, and over half of the outreach and response duties... and was more than anyone else the original inspiration for – as well as driving force behind – Traditions in Western Herbalism and its signature conference.

Charles R. Garcia was born and raised in the central valley of California. Taught herbalism by his mother Martha Garcia who learned from her father Desidro Navarro. Charles is a third generation curandero and practicing herbalist. He moved to the San Francisco bay area at eighteen and has worked in law enforcement and special education. He is the founder and director of the California School of Traditional Hispanic Herbalism. He is a volunteer instructor on Wilderness Emergency Care and was the originator of herbal first aid for the Red Cross. He has taught herbal medicines with the Mid Atlantic Primitive Skills Group and is an ongoing contributor to the text Wilderness Emergency Care by Steve Donelan. He is a friend and associate of Adam Seller, director of The Pacific School of Herbal Medicine. Charles is married and has grown daughters. In his spare time he writes poetry and has completed his first on-line novel.

Phyllis Light A fourth generation Herbalist and Healer, Phyllis D. Light has studied and worked with herbs, foods and other healing techniques for over 30 years. Her studies in Traditional Southern Appalachian Folk Medicine began in the deep woods of North Alabama with lessons from her grandmother, whose herbal and healing knowledge had its roots in her Creek/Cherokee heritage. PhyllisÕ studies continued as an apprentice with the late Tommie Bass, a nationally renowned folk herbalist from Sand Rock, Alabama, as well as other herbal Elders throughout the Appalachians and the Deep South. www.phyllisdlight.com

Guest Speakers

CoreyPine Shane is Director of the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine and has spent the past 15 years helping clients by artfully blending Chinese and Western herbal traditions with a focus on local plants. As a seasoned wildcrafter he has extensive knowledge of local plant identification as well as medicine making. He has written on herbal medicine, teaches across the country, and is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild as well as a Street Medic. CoreyPine believes that laughter is an essential part of any medicine chest, which is why he is a part of the "Wise Guy" school of healing. www.blueridgeschool.org

Margi Flint practices in the seacoast town of Marblehead, Massachusetts and over the past thirty-plus years has become their "village herbalist." Margi is Adjunct Professor at North Shore Community College, The Tufts University School of Medicine and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. She offers an herbal clinic monthly and Live-in Practitioner’s Clinics on request. She enjoys lecturing across the US, Canada and Europe. Margi rides the constant ebb and flow of family, gardening, community life, and enjoying the interaction with students. She is author of The Practicing Herbalist, now in its second edition. She is constantly humbled by what she does not know. www.earthsongherbals.com

Darcey Blue French is an herbalist & nutritionist, wildcrafter, gardener, food lover, Earth lover and wild woman. She runs Brighid's Well Herbs with her partner, Sean Donahue. (http://www.brighidswellherbs.com). She was trained as a Clinical Herbalist & Nutritionist at the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism under Paul Bergner, and studied under Rosemary Gladstar and Charlie Kane. Darcey has been using and learning from the plants, both wild and cultivated since childhood, and it is her deep love of the wild Earth and its creatures that fuels her passion for healing and teaching about plants, wilderness, spirit, nourishment and healing. She spends her time leading Edible and Medicinal Wild Plant walks, Plant Spirit Medicine groups, teaching herbal and nutritional classes and intensives both in person and online, teaching children about nature, creating nourishing and delicious meals, wildcrafting and making medicines from the plants, seeing clients and enjoying the wild places on the earth. Darcey practices in the the Vitalist tradition of herbalism, which fosters the interconnection and nourishment of body, mind, and spirit. Through the use of nutrition, herbal formulas, flower essences, and connection with nature, she aims to support the vitality of all aspects of the human being.

John Gallagher is a Community Centered Herbalist. He is also a licensed five element acupuncturist with Cascade Acupuncture in Redmond, WA. Since 1991, he has worked at Wilderness Awareness School, where he teaches herbal studies with the Residential Program. Some of John mentors include EagleSong and Sally King at RavenCroft Garden, Karen Sherwood, Erin Groh, and Jon Young. John helped create the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, Wilderness Awareness Scool's home study program that has reached thousands worldwide. He has spent over 18 years mentoring people in reconnecting with nature. John also spent all those years steeped in Wilderness Awareness School's Art of Mentoring curriculum and is an expert in mentoring long distance. He has created all the websites in the LearningHerbs.com family. www.learningherbs.com & www.herbmentor.com

Monica Rude grew up gardening & hasn't quit. She is a proponent of gardening as therapy for stress, keeping us in touch with natural rhythms, learning what plants have to teach & experiencing gardening as a source of spiritual centering. Founder & owner of Desert Woman Botanicals, she lives in Gila, NM in a garden of many plants which are grown for demonstration, teaching, the Desert Woman product line, food, beauty, inspiration, joy & escape from overwork. www.desertwoman.net

Mimi Hernandez is an herbal educator whose courses balance traditional reverence with scientific understanding and intuitive awareness. Mimi is the outreach coordinator and ethnobotany lecturer for the Appalachian Center for Ethnobotanical Studies at Frostburg Staåte University in Maryland and a primary instructor for the NC Biobusiness Network/AB Tech Natural Products Curriculum. A Professional member of the American Herbalists Guild, Mimi received her Masters of Science degree in Herbal Medicine from the Tai Sophia Institute. She draws upon her rich Latino background & the Granny healers in her life who have inspired her to view healing in a soulful way. The One World Healing Arts Institute in Asheville, NC was inspired by Mimi’s soulful vision of universal gratitude for generations of healing wisdom. http://sites.google.com/a/rootmama.com/mimihernandez/

Julie McIntyre is an Earth ceremonialist and metis of Norwegian and Mohawk/Blackfeet decent. She is the director for the Center for Earth Relations and for the past decade has worked with the Sacred Pipe, Medicine Wheel, and Vision Quests in facilitating closer human bonding with the Earth. An ordained practitioner of the Church of Gaia, Julie recently directed a state ceremonial program for Native men in prison and also works with young women with ceremonial rites of transition into womanhood.

For four years she worked as a Holistic Health Practitioner in an integrative medical clinic in Wisconsin, providing herbal and nutritional counseling, colonic hydrotherapy, laser acupuncture detox, lymphatic drainage therapy, and patient education and support. Devoted to helping people reclaim their ecological identity, Julie has taught adults, young adults and children on the sacredness of Earth relations, the heart as the organ of perception, the ecstatic path, healing shame, medical herbology, and the Medicine Wheel. For six years she had a private Holistic Health practice working with Herbal medicine, sacred Plant Medicine, and spiritual mentoring. www.gaianstudies.org.

Rosalee de la Foret is a clinical herbalist and Structural Medicine Specialist who lives on the edge of the wilderness in the Northeastern Cascades of Washington State. She contributes regularly to HerbMentor.com where she enjoys answering questions in the community forums and providing herbal education through ebooks, articles, videos and photography. Rosalee's roots in herbal medicine began by studying stone age living and she and her husband continue to live simply while closely interacting with the world around them for food, medicine and clothing. You can visit her website at www.Rosalee.info 

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Deborah Brandt is a Clinical Herbalist from New Mexico. She completed Michael Moore's program in 1993 and participates in ongoing herbal education. She has owned the herb shoppe/clinic "From the Ground Up" in Las Cruces, NM since 1994. Deborah is also an RN and has served on a subcommittee for Integrative Practice for the NM State Board of Nursing. She is a writer, teacher and presenter.

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